MSF Doctor Discusses Progress In TB Drug Development

Mar 20, 2014

As World TB Day approaches, Jennifer Hughes, a medical officer working for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on tuberculosis (TB) South Africa, discusses progress in developing drugs to treat TB. In an article on the organization’s website, she writes, “For the first time in fifty years, new drugs are being developed to treat TB. They represent great strides forward, but they can’t be used in isolation. TB is so powerful that you need a full cocktail of drugs to beat it. The only way to catch up to the new face of this old disease is to find new combinations of drugs that are simple, accessible and more tolerable than current treatment and can be implemented rapidly in countries where DR-TB is rife. … We need governments, donors, pharmaceutical firms and research organizations to walk the extra mile, to help deliver new, shorter and more effective treatment combinations — giving people a chance at a cure, a chance at a life…” (3/19).